Home: Metacrisis Doctor and Rose
by songbirdgirl
Summary: Rose and Tentoo oneshot from Rose's pov. *EDIT as of 4/1/14* This is now also a multichapter fic up on my profile. Please check it out if you enjoyed this preview!


Once there was a time I was in love with a man from a place far, far away. He grabbed my hand in the shop where I worked everyday and saved my life and for once, my life was not boring. I had no idea what would happen next. I loved it. It was the first time in my life I had felt important. When the adventure ended, I turned down the chance to contiune the adventure. Almost as soon as he was gone, I knew it was a mistake. And then something amazing happned, something so very rare: I got a second chance. He came back.

I always wondered if he had come straight back. Thinking back to the Doctor at that time, I'd imagine he tried to shake off the rejection for awhile before he came back. This time I didn't make the same mistake. I left Mickey and I left Mum and I left Cardiff and I went off with him. We went to see the end of the world, and it was stunning. More running, more adventure. And when I looked down at the earth from the platform, for the first time in my life I felt small. So unimportant. And that idea, after living a monotonous, self-centered life, was intoxicating. It wasn't that I was a particuarly selfish person, it was just that with so little _other_ in my life, it was hard to see past my own needs.

So the Doctor made me better. I guess that's what doctors do. I had never felt very smart, never did my A-levels, but he sharpened me. And I realized quickly I was falling in love. It was far too late for me to do anything about it, and he looked at me with that goofy grin, and it was like... sometimes, it was like he was looking at his best mate Rose, and sometimes like he was looking at a pet, and sometimes, like he was in pain. I always chalked the last one up to losing his people. I think it must've been hard for him to go from being so lonely to being with someone all the time. Grief has a way of isolating you. I wanted to cut through that. To get him to see me, to see the love I could offer, when he died...

...and when he was reborn. I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life. All the running we'd done, the massive blackout I had just suffered, all the times the world was going to end, and I had never been more scared then when the alien with the big ears in my bedroom grew a new face. Even once I knew he was okay, I was still terrified that he wouldn't like me anymore. Looking back now, I laugh. It was like he was made for me after that. And he reciprocated my feelings much more often, although the pained looks remained.

Losing the Doctor was the most painful thing I had ever experienced in my entire life, seeing as I was too young to remember my dad dying. Once he had told me to always wait five and a half hours. I clung to that wall and sobbed until I thought I was going to throw up. I sobbed until I retched, and if I had anything in my stomach I'm sure I would have lost it. I cried until I was too shakey to stand, then I crumpled to the floor and sobbed some more. I cried until I was out of tears. I have no idea how long it took, but when I reached that point, I set my watch, and I waited. My mum and Mickey and Pete all took turns trying to talk me into leaving, but I told them all over and over that I had made a promise a long time ago.

Bad Wolf Bay. It had to be bad wolf, of course. The end of the world. I thought, when I saw him, that at least I would get a goodbye. Fate was cruel. I don't know what sin I had committed to be punnished in such a manner, but it must've been thr worst of offences.

The cannon was the single most hope inspiring thing I have ever come across. They had been working on the idea for sometime, and they knew it would take a long time to finish it. The condition for being allowed to help in its creation was to start to build a life there. I started taking A-levels, got a job with Torchwood (despite Mum's protests). Started making friends. But things were bad. Sleep lead to nightmares, so mostly I didn't. I started seeing a therapist through Torchwood, someone who could hear about the things I had seen. She was a nice young Asian woman who prescribed me some antianxity medication that didn't work, and some antidepressant that made everything much worse. I stopped taking them. Walked allies at night by myself. Adventure never found me, almost as if something was protecting me despite my reckless behaviour.

Finding him was joy. He was shot down by Daleks and began to regenerate but manged to keep the same body by shooting it off into a hand in a jar that Jack had been holding onto. And there he was. They had this crisis that needed sorting, but then it would be him and me, traveling again, just like old times. It was fate that I had found him. It was fate that he hadn't changed.

Being left on that damn beach again was probably worse than the first time. I had fought so hard. I had earned my place with him. A voice flashed through my head, _maybe he doesn't want you_, but I shook it off. I was tired and shaken. Two Doctors. Two Doctors and Donna and Jack and Mickey and Mum and earlier Martha and Sarah Jane and Harriet. And she was so tired, and here they were, back in the wrong universe. The Doctor (her Doctor, the real Doctor) tossed something to the new Doctor. Donna babbled on. The Doctor was leaving. Leaving me with this half human half Time Lord stranger. I looked at the Doctor. Asked him. And he couldn't answer. But this new Doctor leaned over and whispered in my ear.

Hearing it send a shock through me. I grabbed him and I kissed him and kissed him and he returned it, until I heard the TARDIS door slam. The engine roaring. Three times without a goodbye. He was not a man for goodbyes. I know this now. Too painful after what he had been through. But here I was, after fighting so hard, standing on that damn beach on the wrong side of the rift, watching him leave again. A sob broke through, and the new Doctor took my hand, without saying anaything. "We have the same memories Rose, the same thoughts. The same feelings. We're the same." I shook my head. "We're the same. And I am never leaving you again, Rose Tyler." I just shook my head, tears streaming down my face, and sqeazed his hand tighter. Mum rushed over and put her arms around me. "Let's go home," she said.


End file.
